Lady of tdaxp and I received an “I-797C, Notice of Action” from the Department of Homeland Security (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) today. Our adjustment of status interview will be Friday, March 7, 2008.

I-797C, Notice of Action

While this is all several months later than it could have been (thanks for USCIS bizarrely requesting further evidence when everything had been surprised), several weeks later than it would have been (if our lawyer hadn’t sat on our non-priority case), and my wife will be able to start work half a year later than she would have (if UNL hadn’t reported a nonsensical graduation date), we’re both happy to have an interview date.

Interestingly, trackitt predicted this nearly right on the money — the case with an RFE three days earlier than ours got their notice about two days before us — wow!

The Economist has an obituary for Ian Smith, the leader of the fourteenth colony to declare independence from the United Kingdom. Smith’s rise a product of Britain’s fall: the bankruptcy of Her Majesty’s System Administration Force, necessitated by Britain’s disasterous entry into two disasterous World Wars. Pressured by the majority of the population below him, the Parliament above him, and anti-British Boers to his side, and his own mistakes, Smith’s Southern Rhodesia would fall. Because of his failure, Zimbabwe is now the nightmare it is today.

In a better world, that great war would not have been fought, the Core would have been able to afford a century of capital investment throughout sub-Saharan Africa, and men like Smith would have lived very different lives. But we don’t live in that better world.

At least, not yet.

Anderson Cooper admits one questioner works for Clinton. While others merely publicly endorsed Democratic candidates. No wonder the debate was so fun to watch: it was a set-up.

I wonder when CNN hosts it’s next debate, with a Giuliani employee asking Clinton questions, while Huckabee, Thompson, Romney, and McCain supporters speak their minds.

(Of course the above sentence is rhetoric. CNN is a left-of-center political outlet, and has been for decades. Further, it would be very risky for Democratic candidates to walk into that sort of situation, which is why the Republican candidates only did so out of ignorance.)

Slashdot links to a Scientific American article titled “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids: Hint: Don’t tell your kids that they are. More than three decades of research shows that a focus on effort—not on intelligence or ability—is key to success in school and in life.” (Apparently, SciAm likes long titles.) There’s a lot of work done in the margins on positive psychology, but two of the biggest factors are pretty simple:

1. Make sure your mate is smarter than you
2. Make sure your kid’s friends are harder working than him

Of course, the main purpsoe of parenting isn’t the creation of a high-achieving next generation. It’s love. But high achievement doesn’t necessarily hurt.

Evans, J. St. B. T. (2008). Dual-processing accounts of reasoning, judgment, and social cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.59.103006.093629.

John Boyd’s OODA Loop is a dual processing model of cognition. The very best discussion of dual processing is Jonathan St. B. T. Evans’ “Dual processing accounts of reasoning, judgment and social cognition” (55-page pdf, Annual Review’s description) to be published in January 2008, in the Annual Review of Psychology.

The article goes over a tremendous amount of literature in excellent style. Evans synthesizes many sources I’ve mentioned such as Lieberman’s “comparison between thinking and riding a bicycle,” and recent work noting the very strong correlation between working memory and IQ . But he puts everything in a larger context, showing how field after field is adopting dual processing systems, and thus coming ever closer to Boyd’s OODA model.

If you want to know how people think, Evans’ article is the place to start.

Giuliani — held his own throughout the debate, though on a few occasions were slower or more gentle in response than I expected.

Hucklebee — displaying the best of a preacher’s rhetoric, the only time this Governor looked bad is after he pandered to a mission to Mars, immediately for Tancredo pointed out that was financially absurd

Hunter — a good man outclassed by the complexities of the world.

McCain — generally a slightly less animated version of Giuliani, it’s hard to believe that Romney ran cirlces around him on the subjects of waterboarding and torture. That’s what happens when you let your emotions get the best of you, though.

Paul — an eloquent, intelligent, and forceful advocate for a restoration of the Constitutional order of 1929. Analogous to a knock-out blonde who loves both Rand and Buckley, yet refuses to use any technology that doesn’t rely on the power of steam. Completely impractical.

Romney — a smart man who acts dumb, his repeat of the Bush strategy probably would be smart for a country that hasn’t been exposed to is since 2000.

Thompson — remarkably elderly, his attack ad against Hucklebee reveals him for the third-tier candidate he is

If I could change just one thing per continent…

The first four seem easy enough…

• Europe: Ukraine admitted as a full member-state of the European Union (consolidation of Europe against Russia)
• Asia: “Berlin Wall” moment as Korean DMZ becomes the conduit for a mass exodus (End of Kim Family Regime)
• Africa: Zimbabwe as joint South African - Chinese Condominium (UN starts outsourcing its colonial administration)
• North America: Cuba joins NAFTA/USA (End of Castro Family Regime)

But what should change in Australia? South America? Antarctica?

Dozier continues to throw cash at spam advertising — doorway pages, theory pants, and the rest — in order to prevent googlers from finding out information about the company. Still, the fact that some of the spam pages are very, very low imply that the “newness” of their empty pages wears off quick. Ultimately, John Dozier may only be opening up his company and himself to liability, as these “attorney advertising” pages may eventually turn into sites for adult websites, or other illicit pursuits, if he doesn’t keep their registration up to date.

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Chet Richards, founder of DNI and Belisarius, has an excellent post on decision speed cycle (in the context of the OODA loop):

1. The side which can keep its Orientation more closely matched to the unfolding situation will have an advantage. Another way to say this is that the side whose mental model of the universe is better will find opportunities to create and exploit gaps in the other side’s understanding.

2. You need an inventory of potentially effective actions that can flow smoothly from Orientation via the “implicit guidance and control” link. These actions are generally developed and made intuitive through years of hard training and exercises.

Basically, under this concept, when Orientation decides that it’s time to trigger an action, it just does it. Until then, we continue to observe and to tweak our orientations.

My current projects center around translating these concepts for educational psychologists. It’s a ton of work getting beyond the catch-22 (”why develop a theory if it’s not mentioned in the experimental literature?” “why run an experiment if its not implied by the theoretical literature”), but also a ton of fun.

Got a letter from our unethical lawyer today.

Following our previous phone conversation, both Lady of tdaxp and myself wrote him. He did not respond, and I imagine he assumed that we would follow-up with a phone call, office visit, or something else. He must have realized what the next logical step in getting recourse for his incompetence was, hence today’s epistle

As it is, his letter is bizarre, an extremely polite letter that seems to ignore the last 6 weeks or so of ineptitude. I imagine the purpose is CYA, but either our attorney is operated at a truly deep level or he takes as much care and considering in protecting himself as he does protecting our interests